


Nothing Like a Fresco

by onlythefinest



Series: Whichever Lines Challenge [4]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, whichever lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlythefinest/pseuds/onlythefinest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Nixon's daughter is far more perceptive than he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Like a Fresco

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my Whichever Lines Challenge. I prefer Nixon to have a daughter as opposed to a son, because the image of a curly-haired mini-Nix girl-clone is too much to handle and I love it.

∙♠∙♠∙♠∙♠∙

_He didn't look anything like she'd expected._

∙♠∙♠∙♠∙♠∙

When her father had first described his friend, Cecilia had been picturing a veritable angel. A glow to his fiery hair, soft eyes that held more love than there was in her stuffed bear (and there was a lot in there—she put his heart in herself at the Build-a-Bear workshop), skin softer than the face of her Barbie, a face chiseled out of marble, like the statue in the foyer of her boarding school. She was imagining a man worthy of a Michelangelo fresco (someone her father had given her a book on once—he did really pretty paintings, and all of them had beautiful people in them). She was imagining a saint from Heaven itself.

What she saw was a man taller than her father, with red hair that didn’t glow and blue-grey eyes that looked like the skies outside of her dorm window, just before the sun came up above the hills to the east. His skin didn’t look remarkably soft, and as far as she was concerned Michelangelo wouldn’t have picked him to be in a painting. She frowned a little, hiked her backpack further up on her shoulders as she stepped away from the gate. Her father waved, came through the crowd of people departing the airplane to pick her up in a hug.

“I think you’ve grown,” he said, grinning as he kissed her cheek. She laughed, shook her head and her thick black curls danced.

“I _have_ grown,” she said as he balanced her on his hip and walked back to the redhead. “Mommy says I’m a whole half-inch taller than when school started.”

“That’s impressive,” her father said. “You’re pretty tall for a ten year old—must be the tallest girl in your class.” Cecilia shook her head as her father set her down.

“Nuh-uh,” she said. “Penelope Kellerman is a whole inch taller than me. She says she’s gonna play basketball when she gets older, ‘cause her older sister plays basketball and her mom played basketball professionally, but I told her I thought she should be a ballerina, because ballerina’s are tall and Penny’s too pretty to play basketball.”

“Is that right?” Her father grinned. “Well, Cecilia—I wanted to introduce you to someone.” She smiled and turned to the redhead. She knew his name already; her father talked about him constantly.

“You’re Dick, huh?” she asked, and the redhead smiled and nodded. She stuck out her hand. “ _I’m_ Cecilia.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Dick said as he shook her hand.

“You too,” she said. She took her father’s hand as they went to the baggage claim to get her suitcase, then out to the parking lot where they’d parked the car. She cast sneaky glances at Dick as they walked, decided his face looked more like it had been painted instead of chiseled out of marble. It had softer curves than what she’d imagined. He caught her looking and she quickly stared at her shoes. When she knew he’d looked away she stared again. She was glad he didn’t look like he belonged in a Michelangelo fresco; those men were too perfect. She liked Dick’s flaws. Like how his eyebrows weren’t perfectly symmetrical and how his freckles marched in uneven patterns across his face and down onto his neck. And how his eyes didn’t hold the same intensity some of the fresco men’s eyes did, that unbridled ferocity of a well-placed brushstroke.

He caught her staring again and she looked immediately to her shoes, cleared her throat and decided conversation was in order. “We should get ice cream,” she said, looked hopefully up at her father. Nixon glanced at Dick, who smiled and shrugged a little.

“I wouldn’t mind a milkshake,” he said, and Nix nodded.

“That doesn’t sound too bad, actually.”

They went to a diner near the airport that supposedly served the best milkshakes in town, just like a handful of other diners scattered across the city. Her father patted the seat next to him for her to sit down, but she shook her head and practically forced Dick into the booth, then took the seat across from both of them.

Dick ordered a milkshake, and Nix said he’d just share because he never could eat a whole one anyway. Cecilia got a hot-fudge sundae. “So how has school been?” her father asked, and as she talked about her classes she watched the two men. While she explained how hard her math class was getting she watched them move imperceptibly subtract space between them, brush shoulders and then add just a bit more distance, only to lose it again. She said she enjoyed her history class because they were talking about the Revolutionary War, and she watched her father’s hand steal across the table and strafe against Dick’s, only to retreat before he thought she noticed. She explained there was a boy in her English class who tried to impress her with big words, and her father glanced at Dick and smiled the sort of amatory, pulchritudinous smile she’d never seen him give her mother.

She was beginning to suspect her father had lied to her about Dick being a friend.

Their ice cream came and for a moment she forgot about her investigation, focused instead on the dripping hot fudge and the creamy vanilla ice cream in the dish, ate the cherry on top before she dug her spoon in. When she was halfway finished, she looked up at her father again.

“Are you two dating?”

Nix almost choked on the ice cream he’d just eaten, was glad it didn’t come out his nose when his throat hitched at her question. Of course he was going to tell her that he and Dick were more than just friends, but Christ he hadn’t expected her to just ask, especially out of the blue like that. Thank God for Dick, though.

“We are,” he said, and he put his hand over Nixon’s and Cecilia grinned, used her spoon like a baton to point at them.

“I _knew_ it,” she said, triumphant. “I could tell. I’ve never seen Daddy look at anyone else the way he looks at you. And you look at him the same way.” Dick smiled a little, and Nixon finally regained his composure and breath. He shared Dick’s smile. Cecilia was beaming, her little smile exactly like her father’s.

“You don’t look like a Michelangelo fresco, but that’s okay,” she said, looking at Dick, who looked a little confused at that, gave her a quirky smile and a raised eyebrow. “Daddy thinks you’re perfect and that’s good enough for me.” 


End file.
